Israel in the News Jul/Aug 2006
Christian Zionists ‘Worship Satan’
ARUTZ-7—A senior Palestinian Authority (PA) religious leader has said on a PA-affiliated Web site that Christian Zionists worship “Satan as God.” So reports Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).
The author of the PMW article, Hamed Al-Tamimi, is a member of the Supreme (Islamic) Judicial Council and the director of the Inter-Religion Dialogue Department. He charges that the Christian and Jewish Zionists “both agree on hatred of Islam and the Muslims and on [the goal] to destroy them.”
He goes on to slam the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, accusing the organization of “criminal activities against the Palestinian issue and the Palestinian people.”
PMW quotes a PA TV religious leader who announced a prayer for the murder of “infidels”—a term that includes the Christian West, it notes. “Destroy the Infidels and the Polytheists!” the prayer exhorts viewers. “Count them and kill them to the last one, and don’t leave even one.”
Nor does the Balfour Declaration escape notice. “Balfour and Prime Minister Lloyd George were Christian Zionists,” said Al-Tamimi. Al-Tamimi concluded his diatribe with an accusation against the International Christian Embassy, “who adopted Satan as God who drives their crazy nature. They have praised depravity and cursed virtue,” he went on, “and have reached [a point] in which forgery, deception and lying have turned into descriptions of world policy which is led by the Zionism on both its branches—the Jewish and the Christian.”
Hamas Comics, Kidnappings
While Hamas tries to legitimize and sanitize itself for the West, it has plans to kidnap Israeli soldiers and use them as bargaining chips for the release of Palestinian terrorists. It also has come out with comic strips to entice Arab children to become terrorists and promises on its Web site to “drink the blood” of the Jews.
The Yemenite newspaper Al-Ayyam quoted Hamas’s Nabil Nassar as saying Hamas will use every means, including kidnapping Israeli soldiers, to free terrorists in Israeli jails.
Meanwhile, another Hamas official denied telling CBS News he was “seeking a peace settlement and stability in this region,” looked forward to “peace and tranquility,” and was “seeking American administration to create this missing peace.”
Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook of the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) said Nassar called the CBS report “lies” and “part of a conspiracy of the US media to damage the true image of Hamas,” which has vowed to destroy Israel. Hamas leaders continue the practice of late PA chieftain Yasser Arafat, who spoke of peace in English and war in Arabic.
The comic books, translated into English by PMW, refer to Israelis as “evil Zionists” who aspire to kill small children. The comics teach Arab youth to become terrorists to “liberate” Israel from “Zionist thieves.”
For months now, the Hamas Web site has promoted the parting video messages of two Hamas suicide terrorists. One said, “We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children’s thirst with your blood. We will not leave until you leave the Muslim countries.”
Warren Buffett Buys Israeli Firms
American billionaire Warren Buffett has bought two Israeli companies in less than a week, paying$4 billion for one of them.
Hillel Fendel of Arutz-7 reported that Buffett, owner of the investment company Berkshire Hathaway and reputed to be the second richest person in the world, purchased 80 percent of the Iscar Metalworking Companies from the Wertheimer family.
Wrote Fendel, “Iscar began some 50 years ago as a small aluminum framing company in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. Stef Wertheimer, who founded the company, and his son Eitan, the current chairman, will continue to own 20 percent of the company.” It will remain headquartered in Tefen, in the western Galilee. The sale makes the Wertheimers the wealthiest family in Israel.
The ink was hardly dry on the deal when CTB, an Indiana-based subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, purchased 60 percent of Israel’s AgroLogic company for between $5 million and $10 million, according to Haaretz.com. The firm manufactures climate control and weighing systems for feed and poultry. It is based in Netanya.
Haaretz said Iscar was Buffett’s first purchase outside the United States.
Arutz-7 reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert welcomed Iscar’s purchase, saying it indicated worldwide confidence in the Israeli economy. “This is not just another billion-dollar deal. The fact is that [Buffett] is neither a Jew nor a Zionist; the biggest investor in the world believes in Israel’s economy, and this will give us a great push and will encourage innumerable other investors.”
Go Wireless!
Arutz-7—The Nortel Networks has set up a “Wireless Mesh” network in the Samaria city of Ariel in order to test the system for wider applications worldwide. It will provide broader wireless Internet coverage than Wi-Fi and will be used by the municipality to read water meters remotely, streamline communication between city workers, bolster law enforcement capabilities with extended video surveillance, extend the University of Judea and Samaria’s network in the town, and provide all residents with wireless Internet.
Is Abbas Hanging by a Thread?
Life appears precarious these days for Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. While Abbas tries to convince Russia and other nations to pour millions into the bankrupt PA to avert what some call a “humanitarian disaster,” terrorist groups are trying to kill him.
Even the Arab-run Aljazeera.net reported that security around Abbas has been tightened, and a “senior Palestinian source” stated, “We have information there are plans to kill President Abbas.”
The situation is symptomatic of the acute power struggle between Abbas, who heads the Fatah movement, and Hamas, which won control of the PA in the January elections. Arutz-7 reported that Fatah terrorists and Hamas terrorists are “locked in an internal war.”
According to Arutz-7, “Fighters shot a Fatah member of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service, a force under Abbas’ control. Hours later, a Hamas terrorist was shot and seriously wounded by Fatah fighters.”
In May Israeli intelligence reportedly thwarted Islamic Jihad’s attempt to assassinate Abbas, warning him in advance. Earlier a 65-foot-long (20-meter-long) tunnel was discovered under Abbas’s house in Gaza, reportedly dug by Hamas as part of its plan to get rid of the president. And Britain’s Sunday Times reported a Hamas plan to kill Abbas when he visited Gaza.
The most recent conflict involves a new, 3,000-man Palestinian “security” force loyal to Hamas and created in defiance of Abbas. In a countermove, The Jerusalem Post reported, “Thousands of Palestinian police loyal to Abbas paraded in the streets of Gaza in a show of force. Marching near the Hamas-backed gunmen, the policemen chanted, ‘We are the authority. We salute Abu Mazen (Abbas).’”
Abbas is perceived as amenable to peace with Israel, while Hamas wants Israel’s complete destruction.
